


Fresh Bones

by leiascully



Series: The FBI's Most Unwanted [43]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen, Voodoo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 04:21:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4990045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"None of it was real," she said, uncertainly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fresh Bones

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: 2.15 "Fresh Bones"  
> Disclaimer: _The X-Files_ and all related characters are the property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Studios. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

"Mulder," she said on the plane, when they were strapped in and taxiing down the runway.

"I know," he said.

She fingered the charm in her pocket. Security had looked at it oddly, but left it alone. Surely she wasn't the first person to come back from the Haitian camp with a similar souvenir. The plane shivered as it lifted into the air. The bag was a comforting lump in her palm. 

"That would explain how he disappeared on the pier," he said. "Our informant was a ghost, Scully. A shade." 

"And the priority matter that's the reason we're going back to Washington?" she asked.

"Equally shady," he told her. "Or so I've been informed."

The plane wavered again as it banked and Scully trembled with it, remembering fingers pushing up through her palm, hands around her neck.

"None of it was real," she said, uncertainly.

Mulder shrugged against the confines of his seat. "What's real, Scully? All those men are really dead, including Wharton."

"Including Bauvais," she said. "Who you say killed Wharton."

"I know what I saw," he said.

"I know you do," she said. 

He seemed satisfied with that, slumping down in his chair. "I hate to say it, Scully, but maybe we should consider this case closed."

"Maybe that's for the best," she said, looking out the window.

He crossed his arms and nestled into himself. "Sorry in advance if I lean on you." 

"I'm used to it by now," she said. 

"These seats don't have enough support," he mumbled.

She gazed out the window. Mulder napped, his shoulder solid against hers. She thought about boys who chased frogs, who ate two orders of french fries, who had died six weeks before she'd met them; if she blinked, they turned into black kittens. She was dreaming, she realized, and clutched her charm bag a little tighter. The kittens purred, and they were the engines. She woke up when the flight attendant came by with the drinks cart, and asked for black coffee to scald away her reverie. Mulder's head was heavy on her shoulder, his hair silky against her cheek. She nudged him awake and handed him a second cup of coffee.

"It's a miracle," he said, his eyes narrow with weariness over the lip of the styrofoam cup.

"It's just airplane coffee," she said. "A minor miracle at most."

When she got home, she put the charm bag in her dresser drawer. She would take every ounce of protection she was offered. Someone would remember Chester.

The perfume of the herbs lingered in her clothes for years, a whiff of elsewhere, a reminder of mysteries that waited outside the locked doors of possibility.


End file.
